In 50 years since Martin Luther King Jr. marched on the nation’s capitol looking to cash a check for equality, the Pasadena area has made significant progress toward King’s “Dream” but still falls short of achieving it.

“Things on the surface have gotten better,” but there’s still awhile to go before King’s “Dream” is realized, said attorney Joe Hopkins, a Pasadena resident.

Hopkins moved to Pasadena in 1969, just months before the Crown City became the first outside the South to desegregate its public schools as the result of a federal court order.

Despite appearances, Hopkins noted that attitudes toward race and King’s demand for civil rights are now often couched in nostalgia for the pre-civil rights era.

“It’s a state of irony that the main movie in the country is ‘The Butler,’ which tells the story of how things were,” Hopkins said. “At the same time, we’re having the anniversary of the March on Washington, and we have a black president, which gives the illusion things are 100 percent better. I’d say more like 60 percent better.”

Pasadena resident Terrance Roberts, one of the Little Rock Nine, said King’s speech inspired immediate action, but added there’s been some back sliding since.

“King gave a speech because that’s what was required at this time of events” Roberts said. “Speeches tend to stand out. People are emotionally moved, but then it’s business as usual.”

In 1957, Roberts was among a group of black students who attended Central High School in Arkansas, testing the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education which held that segregated schools were unconstitutional.

The nine faced hostility in classrooms, where their military escorts could not go. Roberts finished high school in Los Angeles in 1958, after Arkansas Governor Orval Eugene Faubus closed all Little Rock public schools in an effort to stop forced integration.

Pasadena in 1963 wasn’t much better.

“The attitudes that people held in Pasadena were no different than the attitudes people held in Little Rock,” said Roberts, “They were opposed to integration on any level, schools especially.”

Pastor George Van Alstine, of the Altadena Baptist Church attended Fuller Seminary in Pasadena in 1962. His first church assignment was in Massachusetts. It was there, on Aug. 28, 1963 he heard King’s moving speech.

“When I heard Dr. King, it just cut through everything,” he said, choking up.

Van Alstine returned in 1972 and was eventually elected to a seat on the Pasadena Unified School Board.

Not that old wounds have healed. PUSD president Renatta Cooper noted that the city has more private schools per capita than any other city its size in the United States. And, she says, a racial divide still exists.

“The community is still … I think wounded is the right word,” she said.

The San Gabriel Valley’s Asian and Latino communities have attempted to build on King’s groundwork.

Southern California’s Chicano movement of the 1960s and 1970s found its inspiration in the civil rights movement, according to Dionne Espinoza, a San Gabriel Valley native who teaches Chicano Studies at Cal State Los Angeles. Espinoza grew up reading “I Have A Dream” in school in Alhambra, she said.

“People began to look around and say, ‘What is happening in our communities?’ and began to question things that had not been questioned maybe before,” she said.

Latino students staged a walkout in 1968 in protest of school officials attitudes. That same year King brought together leaders from different ethnic groups for the Poor People’s March.

“It wasn’t just an African American issue, it was an issue that affected all communities,” she said.

While Latinos may now have more opportunities to attend higher education institutions than before, the problem of educational access remains one of the community’s existing problems, along with immigration rights and racial profiling, she said.

King made democracy a part of everyone’s life, said Susie Ling, a professor of Asian-American Studies and History at Pasadena City College.

Early Asian settlers in the San Gabriel Valley struggled to get recognition.

“They were not leaders, they were not teachers, they were not allowed to be,” Ling said. “By the late-70s, early-80s, people started to understand the need for more political change, it was a gradual movement, but I think in America, Dr. King was an important part of the continuum.”

While the iconic “I Have a Dream” portion of King’s speech gets all of the focus, people forget King’s speech pointed to the broken promise that all “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” said Ralph Walker, a civil rights activist and host of Conversations with Ralph Walker on Monrovia’s KGEM.

The problems present in the San Gabriel Valley mirror problems in the rest of the country, he said. He used the example of gang violence found in Monrovia and found in Chicago.

“I can ask, ‘Where the jobs are in Detroit? and I can ask the same question, ‘Where are the jobs in the San Gabriel Valley?” he said. “That’s why King could go to Mississippi, he could march to Chicago and then he could go to L.A., fighting the same problem.

“Racism, unemployment, sexism, it is still prevalent in America,” Walker said. “It is up to the young people to seize the manner of equality and move forward with it. I’ve seen a lot of great changes, but I’ve also seen a lot of dragging of feet.”

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